


This Is the Cadence of Our Hearts

by peloquine



Series: Destinations [2]
Category: Spartacus - Fandom, Spartacus Series (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fluff, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-21
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-12 13:23:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peloquine/pseuds/peloquine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few moments in Saxa and Mira's relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is the Cadence of Our Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the same 'verse as "I'll Splatter Colour..."

**I.**

The first time Saxa kisses is Mira is at 2 pm after a night out, standing in the street outside Mira’s apartment with soft summer rain falling on them and getting them wet because neither of them brought an umbrella. They are a little bit drunk and laughing and tired after long hours of dancing.

It is not a conscious decision. One moment Mira is saying goodnight and the next she smiles and then Saxa lunges forward, grabs her chin, and mashes their mouths together, causing Mira stumble back, unsteady on her high-heels after one too many beers.

It lasts only for a few seconds. Saxa pulls back.

They stare at each other. The rain increases, heavy drops hitting the street lamp-lit pavement.

“I…” Saxa begins, uncharacteristically lost for words, because she has to fucking fix this. Salvage it, if that is even still possible. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was fucking _handling_ it. “Fuck it, I…”

Mira swallows and takes her hand in a firm grip, giving her a soft, tentative smile. “You should come up.”

Saxa does.

The door closes behind them and they begin ridding each other of the rain-wet clothes with fingers fumbling from nervousness and eagerness, and leaves the garments where they fall on the floor to dry.

They don’t talk. They just kiss until their lips are swollen with it and fall asleep on top of Mira’s bedspread.

 

**II.**

“You ever miss it?” Mira asks in the darkness.

They’re in Saxa’s bed, bodies tangled together under the sheets, Saxa with her head on Mira’s chest and Mira with her fingers running through Saxa’s hair, dissolving the small braid she’d just completed.

No one knows about this but them. For now it is something they keep to themselves, something that is wholly theirs. It is exhilarating and frightening and they need time to figure this thing, _them_ , out before anyone else can know about it.

“Miss what?” Saxa asks lazily without opening her eyes.

“Your wild and crazy sex life,” Mira says. Her words are light, but there is seriousness underneath. She isn’t insecure about her own abilities – she knows that she and Saxa has awesome sex, but for Saxa it cannot be anything but vanilla. Mira isn’t familiar with Saxa’s entire sexual history, but she knows enough. There was a camping trip once where Saxa and Gannicus ended up in a tent with two girls who were out hiking, to name one example out of many.

“We have wild and crazy sex,” Saxa says and she sounds content and languid, which makes something warm settles in Mira’s stomach. “I’m pretty sure we just broke a lamp.”

“You know what I mean.” Mira lets one hand slide down over Saxa’s back and the other over her bicep, enjoying the feel of firm muscles under her skin. “You’re not afraid you’ll get bored?”

Saxa rolls away from her, forcing Mira to remove her hands, and flicks on the reading light. She sits up and leans back on her elbows, looking at her.

She is frowning, Mira realises and her heart skips a beat. This is unfamiliar territory for both of them, this relationship, and they are treading carefully, unwilling to lose this new thing between them and the friendship they’ve shared for so long.

“I’m not some dumbass teenager who doesn’t know what she wants,” Saxa says indignantly and decisively. “I haven’t had anything like this before, but I sure as hell won’t run off the moment this isn’t fucking sunshine and rainbows all the time any longer. I’m not here for fucking _fun_ or shit – I’m here because I _want_ you.”

Mira closes her eyes, momentarily taken aback. They both knows that this is more than just sex, but they haven’t really discussed it or put it into words at all, both of them all to content with having it the way it is right now.

“Apologies,” she says, reaching a hand out for Saxa, who takes it and lies down next to her again, naked skin warming against naked skin.

 

**III.**

There is nothing that helps calm Mira down better than target-practice. Saxa claims that the best way to work out aggression or stress is kick-boxing, but Mira disagrees. The calm, measured movements of focusing on the target, positioning the bow, pulling the bowstring back and breathing in deeply before releasing the arrow with a heavy snap of the string never fails to help her empty her mind of all concerns and worries.

The arrow hits slightly to the left of bull’s-eye and she picks up another, repeats the procedure.

Bow practice always reminds her of her mother. She was the one who introduced her to archery in the first place when she was still just a small kid and even though all the memories she has from being down at the range are happy ones, they are tinged with something bittersweet. It was a safe place for both of them, but they always had to return home.

She thinks about how much she didn’t understand back then, but does now. There was always bruises on Leone’s arm that she said came from her accidently snapping the bowstring against it, but Mira knew that she never accidentally flinched from the string like Mira herself used to do in the beginning and end up with big purple-yellow marks as result, but always kept her arm straight.

However much she misses her mother, she cannot blame her for moving away as far as she could as soon as Mira had settled into a life of our own. She is happy now, remarried to a man that loves her and doesn’t hurt her and won’t leave her, and she has two stepchildren and a whole bunch of step-grandchildren that adores her she talk endlessly about whenever she and Mira call each other.

Mira pulls the drawstring back, holds her arm and back straight like her mother taught her, and releases the arrow. It hits home.

 

**IV.**

“This place is fucking hot as fuck,” Saxa groans while fanning herself with a magazine she picked up from the patio table. “I’m gonna melt into a goddamn pool of fucking goo.”

Leone and Carl both stare at her.

In hindsight, Mira should probably have guessed that her mother and Carl did not expect _Saxa_ when Mira called them and said that she was bringing someone with her for her visiting them in Florida. By to be fair, no one ever expects Saxa.

Her mother had met Spartacus a few times when she was visiting Mira and fallen completely for his charm. She had even chosen to ignore the fact that he was really an MMA-fighter and not working full-time on the different charity projects he spoke so passionately about to her. There had been some awkward moments after Leone had been to his apartment once and insistently asked about the photos of the, to her, unknown woman up on his walls, but overall they had hit it off and Leone had not so subtly insinuated to Mira that she would very much not mind having Spartacus as a son-in-law.

Saxa – loud, foul-mouthed, wild and gorgeous Saxa – is another beast entirely. But they do try, even if they stare in shock at some of the things that come out of her mouth.

The fact that she accidentally knocks down one of Carl’s beloved orchids when doing her kettleball circuits in the living room one morning does not really endear her to them, either.

On the day they leave, however, her mother uses helping to pack as an excuse to sneak home-made cookies into Mira’s bag and surprises her by saying with a wry smile: “Of all of your partners I’ve met, I think she’s my favourite.”

Mira laughs and hugs her mother. “I don’t believe you, but thanks for trying to like her.”

“It’s true,” Leone says, touching Mira’s face. “I’ve never seen you smile this much before.”

 

**V.**

Saxa rolls over, still half-asleep, and aligns her body against Mira’s warm back. The scent of her shampoo fills her nostrils and she runs her palm along Mira’s arm and side, down over her stomach, hazily admiring her beautiful, freckled skin. Mira moves back against her and Saxa tightens her grip.

“Morning, _bärchen_ ,” she mumbles, kissing Mira’s shoulder.

“You can be a bear,” Mira mutters, even though Saxa knows she secretly loves it. Saxa laughs and lets her hand slide up to Mira’s hip, circling the jut of the bone with her thumb.

Mira lets out a quiet, shaky breath as Saxa’s hand sneaks down between her legs, fingertips ghosting over her clit.

She groans. “Stop it,” she whines. “I have to go up soon. Some of us have real grown-up jobs, you know.”

Saxa opens an eye to check the watch. It’s still fifteen minutes until it will go off. “We have time.”

She moves her hand with more intent, two fingertips rubbing in a slow, circular motion that as Mira sighing and shifting on the bed, pressing herself more firmly into the curve of Saxa’s body.

She works her other arm under Mira and brings it up around her so that she can cup her breast and let her thumb flick back and forth across the hardened nipple. She kisses her throat and bites down on the skin but is careful to avoid leaving a mark there.

She gets to work in earnest, moving her fingers fast and hard, because the clock is ticking and Mira hates being late. She closes her eyes at the low, deep groan Mira lets out, her hips working uselessly and Saxa slings her leg over her thigh, keeping her in place.

Mira grows more and more vocal in her pleasure and her neck damp with sweat. Saxa licks a streak up her throat and over her jaw, up to her mouth to kiss her sloppily. Mira is close – she can feel it in the way her body tenses against her and she squeezes with the hand still cupping her breast, her mouth finding the sensitive spot on Mira’s neck and latching on to it.

A shudder runs through Mira and she comes with a sharp, loud gasp, arching against Saxa. Saxa's fingers slow down but doesn’t still and Mira draws in several deep, harsh breaths. Saxa mouths at her shoulder and moves her hand down lower to slide two fingers into her. Mira moans.

Saxa doesn’t really fuck her, just moves her fingers slowly in and out of her to feel how warm and wet she is around her.

Stretching out her legs with a hum, Mira twists half-way around to kiss Saxa on the mouth. “Love you,” she murmurs against her lips.

The clock goes off.

“Damn right you do,” Saxa says, twisting her fingers a little before reluctantly pulling them out.

Mira turns the clock off but doesn’t move, and after a short while, Saxa butts her shoulder with her chin. “Go shower before all my self-control flies out the fucking window.”

Mira laughs, but does as she says and throws back the covers to get out of bed. She stretches with Saxa’s eyes glued to her ass and the curve of her back and turns around to give her a proper kiss.

Saxa rolls onto her back and lets her fingers, slick with Mira’s wetness, trail down between her own legs as Mira straightens.

“Fuck you,” she says, but she smiles.

“I’ll think about you,” Saxa says, grinning up at her and Mira pinches her side before moving over to the dresser to grab some underwear. She walks out of the bedroom without looking at Saxa and Saxa laughs at her.

She brings herself off quickly and then nods off a little bit. Real, grown-up jobs are overrated as hell.

She is woken from her slumber by Mira kneeling on the bed and saying: “Zip me up.” Saxa does, pulls the zipper on her charcoal grey skirt halfway and makes a low, frustrated noise when she has to sit up to get it up all the way.

“Thanks,” Mira says, getting off the bed. Tucked into the skirt she has a red flannel shirt that used to be Saxa’s until it was accidentally shrunk in the wash and Saxa pities the poor students that has to try to focus in her lectures, because her girlfriend is a fucking goddess.

 _Literally_ a goddess, as far as Saxa’s concerned. She will never stop teasing Mira about the fact that her middle name is Diana. It’s just too damn perfect.

“How do I look?”

“Elegant as fuck,” Saxa says through a yawn and a stretch.

“Good.” Mira picks up a few folders from the nightstand and pulls the charger out of her phone. “When are you going down to the gym today?”

“Late,” Saxa mumbles. “Two thirty.”

“I have tons of marking to do,” Mira says, “so I won’t come home ‘til late, but I can get some take out for us.”

“’Kay.”

Mira bends down to kiss her goodbye. “Love you.” She grins. “Kick all their asses.”


End file.
